Software Functionality Revealed in Detail
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The simplified definition of enterprise resource planning (ERP) software is a set of applications that automate finance and human resources departments and help manufacturers handle jobs such as order processing and production scheduling. ERP began as a term used to describe a sophisticated and integrated software system used for manufacturing. In its simplest sense, ERP systems create interactive environments designed to help companies manage and analyze the business processes associated with manufacturing goods, such as inventory control, order taking, accounting, and much more. Although this basic definition still holds true for ERP systems, today its definition is expanding. Today’s leading ERP systems group all traditional company management functions (finance, sales, manufacturing, and human resources). Many systems include, with varying degrees of acceptance and skill, solutions that were formerly considered peripheral such as product data management (PDM), warehouse management, manufacturing execution system (MES), and reporting. During the last few years the functional perimeter of ERP systems began an expansion into its adjacent markets, such as supply chain management (SCM), customer relationship management (CRM), business intelligence/data warehousing, and e-business, the focus of this knowledge base is mainly on the traditional ERP realms of finance, materials planning, and human resources. The foundation of any ERP implementation must be a proper exercise of aligning customers' IT technology with their business strategies, and subsequent software selection.

Today’s “new normal” business environment demands a new view of what customers value and an improved approach to delivering that value. The idea to delivery (I2D) framework posits that multiple companies now compete as a business network rather than as individual enterprises, each relying on the others to achieve collective success. This paper includes an action plan with the evolutionary steps companies can take to move toward this approach.

Here’s the inside story on how an international manufacturer using a traditional, local enterprise resource planning (ERP) solution shifted gears to end up with an on-demand, remotely hosted ERP system. It wasn’t the change the company originally intended, but the benefits proved too overwhelming to resist.

Many CFOs, CTOs, supply chain managers, and logistics managers struggle to decide which supply chain management (SCM) software is best-suited to their organizational needs. It doesn’t help that there is an abundance (literally hundreds) of SCM solutions available on the market. Today, I’ll help you understand key SCM modules, and look at some key players with well established SCM solutions

The landscape of the supply chain has changed drastically over the past five years. It went from local to global in manufacturing, procurement, sourcing, logistics, and customers. As such, there are some major challenges in the supply chain network:
There are no boundaries within the network.
There are no physical or virtual boundaries left within the supply chain. For example, the

Many successful midsized companies reach a point when transitioning to a tier-one enterprise application system is necessary. Transitioning to a new enterprise resource planning (ERP) system is a challenge—but it may not be as complex as you think. Learn common myths about tier-one ERP systems, as well as how ERP solutions can help you manage regulatory compliance and track performance with key performance indicators.

The best way to capture customer experience is without a doubt the ability to interpret real customer sentiment, which is reason enough for Medallia to include text analytics capabilities to its already well-known Customer Experience Management Suite (CEM).
Points of note: this offering integrates fully with Medallia’s CEM solution. The vendor touts its ease of use, as well as the ability for

There’s no disputing the fact that content management systems (CMS) and service-oriented architecture (SOA) are closely related. From reuse, the ability to loosely couple service and functions, to being able to combine services into a new form, SOA and CMS share many common threads in the enterprise world. Find out how the forces that have made SOA so important today are now doing the same for CMS in web site management.

In the beginning, e-mail marketing was easy. But as e-mail lists have grown, so have Internet service provider (ISP) restrictions. Today, delivering your e-mail newsletter can be a real challenge, especially with a list of over 10,000 recipients. Instead of adopting one of several seductive but outdated solutions, a better alternative may be to use an e-mail service provider.